Yep. The title of this diary is the subject line of an email I received today from Floyd Brown, of "floydreports.com" No link to this shithole here, though, sorry.
But the title of this youtube video, which purports to show this distressing, violent act by the uppity arrogant POTUS, is "Obama grabs white woman to make her shut up." This is a very subtle, hard to notice tactic sometimes called a "dogwhistle" by some, which may have something to do with, oh, I don't know - racial prejudices, maybe.
[humorous update: yesterday, after this diary had been up a while, the racist asshole who put the video up changed the title to "Calm and Confident President Obama reassures a worried voter," but left the hideous explanation unchanged. Then, this morning, I awoke to seeing it changed to "Obama repeatedly touches white woman to make her shut up," as though it was the word "grab" that was offensive. Hilarity.]
Description and transcript below the delicate scrollwork.
The video is taken from a vantage point behind Obama, as he speaks to a crowd, up-close, greeting and answering questions. A woman is facing him, and somewhat stridently pressing him on whether domestic terrorism is right- or left-wing. As he responds to her, he reaches out and gently touches her on her shoulder, a personal, calming, connecting gesture.
Although I promised a transcript, I can't make out all of what is said, because of background noise. The woman begins by saying something about "...the second person in your administration to call right-wing people terrorists. Janet Napolitano did it first!", but then says, "You do realize that 90% of domestic terrorist attacks are done by left-wing and environmental [garbled]?"
At first, President Obama says, "no, no, that's not..." but as he's not facing the camera, his words are indistinct. His calm, direct manner is hugely evident, though, and the contrast between the actual content of this video and the title, the way it's been promoted, is the point of me bringing this here.
The tea party patriots, as they call themselves, eat this stuff up. The suggestion that the POTUS is manhandling this woman to "get her to shut up" is now a fact, for them.
The accompanying article, typed by by Ben Johnson, says, in part,
Barack Obama is currently on a “listening tour” of the Midwest to bolster his uphill re-election campaign. When two average Americans dared to ask him about his administration’s harsh rhetoric against its opponents, Obama got testy before repeatedly putting his hands on a woman to try to stifle her.
Obama is visibly tense throughout the exchange. Let’s look at that video again, more closely this time. Notice how Obama listens until the woman starts to speak — and then he decides to reach out and touch someone:
Obama showed his thuggish tendencies in this video. ...In this discussion, he could not take the mild questioning anymore and attempted to physically break this conservative woman’s line of thought, physically intimidate her, or at a minimum decided this little lady needed to be steadied because of her little feminine case of the vapors.
We can't reach the people who swallow this whole. Everything we say is, to them, a lie. We have to be stronger, and clearer in our messaging to those who haven't gone over into lala land.
And, as a necessary disclaimer in this forum, I don't think the actions of Obama's administration have been in line with Progressive ideals, but I believe in incremental change. In these insane times, the fact that his approval is still near half the country stands as a testament to his success.
Update: thanks to MTmofo in the comments, here's another take on the same event, from Slate. Better transcript, better video.
'nother update: thanks for the comments and recs. now I gotta go get wrecked.